Robert Motherwell Paintings and Collages: A Catalogue Raisonné 1941 – 1991 Volume 3 - Flipbook - Page 35
c21
comments
The left side of this collage contains a
large piece of the German wrapping
paper that Motherwell had been using
since The Flute, 1943 (c6).
In 1972 Motherwell wrote that
the title of this collage, “refers to the
French underground, among other references” (Motherwell in Museum of
Fine Arts, Houston, exh. cat. 1972,
p. 50). The composition contains clear
pictorial allusions to Picasso’s Studio,
1927–28 (Museum of Modern Art,
New York), and was meant to refer to
artistic as well as political resistance.
c21
Collage No. 1
group exhibitions
Whitney Museum of American Art,
New York, February 1946, cat. no. 123,
as Figuration.
Alternative Title: Figuration
1945
Tempera, pasted wood veneer, and
pasted papers on paperboard
21½ x 14½ in. (54.6 x 36.8 cm)
Busch-Reisinger Museum, Harvard
University, Cambridge, Mass., 1951.
inscriptions
Recto, upper left [painted over]:
[illegible]
Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University,
Cambridge, Mass., 1964, cat. no. 21,
as Collage.
Recto, lower left: Motherwell 45
Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University,
Cambridge, Mass., 1975, cat. no. 27.
artist’s studio number
c45-5213
present owner
The Fogg Art Museum, Harvard
University Art Museums. Louise E.
Bettens Fund
provenance
Samuel M. Kootz Gallery, 1945; Fogg
Art Museum, Harvard University Art
Museums, Cambridge, Mass., 1949
solo exhibitions
Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.,
1965, cat. no. 2, illus. n.p. (erroneously
in caption as The Elegy); as Collage.
Boston Arts Festival, 1957, as Collage.
wrapping papers that Motherwell had
been using in his collages since 1943.
The numbers in the titles of this work
and of Collage No. 2 (c22) are related to
the numbering system of the Samuel
M. Kootz Gallery; these were the first
two Motherwell works assigned Kootz
Gallery inventory numbers (Kootz nos.
501 and 502 respectively).
Harvard University Art Museums,
Cambridge, Mass., 1985, cat. no. 89,
color illus. p. 93.
Bunkamura Museum of Art, Tokyo,
1999 (traveling), cat. no. 52.
references
Celentano 1957, pp. 35, 98, illus. n.p.
(fig. 41), referred to in text and in illus.
as Figuration; Pleynet 1975, illus. p. 7,
erroneously as Personnage.
comments
This collage contains wood veneer
and a piece of one of the German
co lla ges
23
